Friday, October 16, 2015

Let us start to use emerging technologies and approaches which have the potential to shift health, medicine and biopharma from an intermittent and reactive physician-centric mode, to an era of more continuous data and a proactive approach in which the individual is increasingly empowered and integrated into personalized wellness, diagnosis and therapy.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

The more rules and laws, the more people delegate analysis and choice and common sense to compliance The existence of rules and laws lessens selecting the option to use analysis to determine one's own responsibility, to choose for oneself, so that soon the ability to compare has atrophied. Rebels know this, delight in work-arounds. Hackers know this, delight in beating the code. Those hungry for power know this, delight in loopholes. When laws and computer code rule, who will be left who can think?

Thursday, July 16, 2015

About Greece, and defaulting on debt, ...
I've been thinking about the news about debt, Greece, defaulting, student loans, who can and who can't just wipe away a debt. There's a piece missing! Payment is a return on the use of the lender's asset. And included in the interest rate charged is insurance to the lender against default. Built into how much a lender charges the borrower for a loan – mortgages at 4%, credit cards at 18% - is the expectation of getting the whole loaned amount back, and the risk to the lender of default. So if the lender isn't paid back, that's just part of the expectation, and the cost of not getting paid back is built into the rate. So I don't understand why there is so much noise about defaulting. It seems to me all that means is the interest rate wasn't set high enough, that it's on the lender, not the defaulter!

Monday, July 13, 2015

Both discrimination based on race and exclusion based on poverty have the same purpose, shoring up one group by diminishing another. Some groups have become white/acceptable (Irish, Catholics, some Latinos, Jews (maybe), … ); some individuals and groups have climbed out of poverty. Lots of people are left to 'other', to stoke up one's own sense of self by assuming one is better than another based on a category (women, blacks, immigrants, … ). Instead of some in, some out, all in.

… so much attention to the abuse of prescription drugs, using heroin as an alternative when opiods are restricted, ... and no attention to the systemic causes of so much pain – poverty, diet, environmental pollution …

Thursday, June 18, 2015

To whom does my life belong: God (creator), the State (which invested in me through schooling, protections, … ), my smaller community (family, friends, colleagues who would all miss me and hurt at the loss), or myself (freedom/liberty … ). Can there be autonomy without obligation?
I answer no. However, I still wonder what are my obligations now.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Sunday, April 19, 2015

A computer, Word Perfect, and Santa Cruz's earthquake in 1989 and learning about reactions to shock (Bessel van der Kolk) in that context are what got me started writing. I've written a lot from the perspective of psychiatric disability, the years from 1986.
http://peoplewho.org/sylvia/om/index.htm
That identity gave me voice and purpose.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Three goals:
1. Fix the broken City political process - SCRAM is successful here, smart and strong.
2. Open a dialog about risk, fear, othering, scare tactics, militarization ... I'd like to see a speaker's panel ... how opinion is formed, how police went from blue to black, how we are using the fallen officers, political wars on drugs, terrorism, homeless ...
3. Prevent the purchase. Use the infrastructure - SCRAM can contact GAO, Homeland, ... to suggest irregularities, hint at audit, ask for a hold, use FOIA